Sydney, Sept 18: In an attempt to stop “helicopter parents” from hovering over schools and stalking teachers, some of the US educational institutes are asking the guardians to sign behavioural contracts.

Gene Batiste, from the US National Association of Independent Schools in Washington, DC, who was present in Sydney for the opening of a leadership centre for the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales, said that parents were taking on adversarial roles with teachers and school administrators.

"Helicopter parents is the growing issue of parents hovering over schools," he said. "They are just around too much,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Batiste, as saying.

Miranshah, Sept 18 : Despite the talks between top US military man Admiral Michael Mullen Mullen and his Pakistani counterpart Ashfaq Kayani to resolve the US’ unilateral strikes issue, spy planes were seen hovering over North Waziristan early morning today.

Drones appeared over Ghulam Khan, Saidgai, Danday Darpakhel, Miranshah, Mir Ali, Razmik, Datakhel and Hanzwani areas of North Waziristan, causing panic and tension among the people, The News reported.

Besides, drones were also seen patrolling over some areas of South Waziristan.

New York, Sept. 18: Racism has come to the fore again in the United States more than four decades after blacks were granted their civil and civic rights.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has attracted praise for being realistic, controversy and criticism by issuing a statement that said that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama could still lose the elections because he is “black”.

Baghdad - Nine US soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed west of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the US army said Thursday.

Washington, Sept 18: It’s not just humans who find yawning contagious, for man’s best friend, dogs too can show empathy – by catching yawns off their owners.

According to the study’s researchers, the findings suggest that domestic dogs have the capacity for a fundamental form of empathy.

The phenomenon, called contagious yawning, has been found only in humans and other primates such as chimpanzees and is thought to relate to our ability to empathize with others.

Researcher Ramiro Joly-Mascheroni, a psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London first tested the phenomenon in his dog, a Labrador.

Singapore - For the third day in a row, hundreds of customers unconvinced of the soundness of American International Assurance (AIA) converged on the service centre in Singapore Thursday with many determined to surrender their policies.

"Even with the AIG bailout by the US government, everything is still uncertain," said Karen Tan, a 42-year-old woman with no intention of keeping her policies.

The US Federal Reserve bank's 85-billion-US-dollar loan to AIA's parent, American International Group (AIG), triggered little solace and so many more questions that the insurer opened a second service centre in the AIA Tower next door.

Wary policyholders were also lining up in Taiwan and Hong Kong.